Note: there are apparently many versions of this film around. I saw the 108 minute version with restored footage, dated 1987.
It seems there is a trend nowadays to deify Orson Welles and his film "Touch of Evil" and make great statements about it. I, for one, first became aware of this film through AMC, who hyped it incessantly several years ago. I became obsessed with seeing TOE, but never was able to catch it.
Later, when on one of my "foraging expeditions", I found TOE at a local video store. "Aha!" I thought. Then I bought the tape.
Touch of Evil is a product of what film students like to call the "misunderstood genius" Orson Welles. Today among film buffs there seems to be a tremendous fascination with "things Orson" - if Orson did it, it's got to be good.
Orson wrote, directed, and starred in Touch of Evil, therefore it must be the product of a genius they reason… viewing of the film, while amusing, just doesn't bear this out, however.
Yes, there are impressive camera angles and shots, yes, there are fine actors, including the grossly obese Orson as crooked detective Hank Quinlan, Chuck Heston in blackface as Mexican detective Mike Vargas and sex bomb Janet Leigh for eye candy, and a good jazz score by Henry Mancini, but the whole just doesn't add up to more than the sum of the parts. Sorry y'all, but this time the critics had it right. This IS a stinker and deserves to be forgotten, just as it was for 30 years after it premiered. It is most decidedly a bomb.
The story was shocking by 1958 standards with emphasis on drugs and gangs, but laughable today with its misinformation. To top it off, the story was not brought to the screen with reasonable care. The continuity is not there, with the movie forging ahead while conveniently forgetting about details that will tie it all together at the end. The alert viewer notices these shortcomings.
The acting is more often over the top with the likes of Dennis Weaver as the psychotic hotel clerk, Akim Tamiroff as the local godfather, the gang who terrorizes Janet Leigh, and Welles himself, with his staring pop-eyes.
Old pro Marlene Dietrich, alas in a cameo, adds a touch of lucidity to the tale, telling the enormous unshaven Welles to "Lay off the candy bars."
Perhaps Welles, through the story of a corrupt official, with the added racial overtones of the Mexican character, an outsider, was making a statement about his own treatment by the studios. He was box office poison and Heston had to go to bat for him at Universal for Welles to get hired.
If this is true, then Quinlan = Studios and Vargas = Welles.
Whatever the case, it is a good thing to see this movie but it is a mistake to believe it is as good as a lot of people say it is. Trust your own judgment!
I give it four stars for cinematography, two stars for acting, one star for continuity, two stars for direction, two stars for story, and two stars for score 13/6 = 2.17, or two stars.
Watch Touch of Evil and see if you agree. Better examples of film noir include "The Maltese Falcon", Welles' own "The Third Man", and "Double Indemnity".
Complete, uncut and restored to Orson Welle s vision set in a squalid Mexican border town, Welles, as the corrupt and bogoted small-town police chief,...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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